Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (May 03/01) - A group of Northerners is planning to raise the nation's awareness of the dramatic changes the last 25 years have brought to the Northwest Territories.

Territorial funding for the Living History symposium was secured just a day before the official unveiling of the symposium. According to officials who responded to calls from the Yellowknifer, cabinet dealt with funding for the project on Tuesday, during the second of two days of cabinet meetings. At a press conference held Wednesday to announce the symposium, deputy premier Jim Antoine said details of how the $100,000 will be provided have yet to be finalized. The Living History Society indicated the federal government has agreed to contribute $155,000. A BHP Billiton official said the company is providing $50,000 of a total of $65,000 contributed by diamond companies. The society said petroleum companies have contributed another $30,000. During review of the 2002-03 territorial budget last March, regular MLAs balked at the lack of justification the government had to offer for spending $250,000 on the project. They said the government initially recommended contributing $500,000 to it, including security costs associated with the Governor General's visit. During the budget review Antoine failed to produce any formal funding application from the Living History Society. A government official said the formal request was received March 15.

Three times during Wednesday's official announcement of a conference on the new North the hoopla that surrounded the establishment of Nunavut was mentioned.

"Nunavut got a big splash at the time of division, deservedly, but we deserve some of that recognition," said Marie Wilson, project director for the Living History Society. Wilson is married to NWT Premier Stephen Kakfwi.

The society was established last year to organize events and productions, such as a video, celebrating the quarter century since Thomas Berger conducted his inquiry into the proposed Mackenzie Valley Pipeline.

"Our media does a good job of looking at the stuff that's not good," said deputy premier Jim Antoine. "We should refocus, look at what we've done and how we can learn from that."

The conference is the society's first event. Confirmed guests for the June 17-19 conference, with the theme "The True North Strong and Free: A New Vision in the National Interest," include federal, territorial and aboriginal leaders in the NWT.

Conspicuously absent from the list is premier Kakfwi, a central figure in the political development of the NWT.

Gov. Gen. Adrienne Clarkson will be the patron of the conference, attending with her husband, John Ralston Saul.

Society director Don Yamkowy characterized the image most southerners have of the NWT as a "blur that there's polar bears involved, that there are miners -- it's a vision of the past."

He said part of the aim of the conference is to define a new identity for the territory to help sharpen such vague and outdated notions of it as place of uninterrupted wilderness. "There's also a business aspect here," said society co-chair Peter Allen. "We want to make sure that people who come to work in the NWT know what it is to live in the NWT."

He added that raising awareness in the south of the development that has occurred and continues to occur could help attract investment dollars.